Hidden Supernova: Stars Are Exploding in Dusty Galaxies – We Just Can’t Always See Them
Exploding stars generate dramatic light shows. Infrared telescopes like Spitzer can see through the haze and to give a better idea of how often these…
Spitzer Space Telescope
“Failed Stars” Caught Speeding: Astronomers Clock the Fastest-Spinning Brown Dwarfs
Astronomers at Western University have discovered the most rapidly rotating brown dwarfs known. They found three brown dwarfs that each complete a full rotation roughly…
New Worlds in a River of Young Stars Discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
Using observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a trio of hot worlds larger than Earth orbiting…
3D Map of Cosmic Neighborhood Created With Help From Worldwide Network of Citizen Scientists
Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to map dozens of new brown dwarfs, or balls gas not heavy…
Stellar Snowflake Cluster Spotted by Spitzer Space Telescope
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the so-called Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope….
Chaos Swirls at the Heart of the Orion Nebula
Gaseous swirls of hydrogen, sulfur, and hydrocarbons cradle a collection of infant stars in this composite image of the Orion Nebula, as seen by the Hubble Space…
Perplexing 16-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery Solved, Revealing Stellar Missing Link
The Blue Ring Nebula, which perplexed scientists for over a decade, appears to be the youngest known example of two stars merged into one. In…
Highly Unusual “Hot Neptune” Exoplanet 260 Light Years Away That “Shouldn’t Exist”
A team led by an astronomer from the University of Kansas has crunched data from NASA’s TESS and Spitzer space telescopes to portray for the…
First Possible “Survivor” Planet Discovered by NASA Next to a Stellar Cinder
The violent events leading up to the death of a star would likely drive away any planets. The newly discovered Jupiter-size object may have arrived…
NASA’s Spitzer Spies a Massive Star Factory – 2 Quadrillion Miles Across
The most massive stars in the universe are born inside cosmic clouds of gas and dust, where they leave behind clues about their lives for…
World Discovered Orbiting a Unique Young Star Provides Astronomers With a One-of-Kind Laboratory
The newly discovered planet’s parent star is still encircled by the disk of material from which both objects formed, giving scientists a glimpse at early…
Dancing Black Hole Collision Unleashes a Flash of Light Brighter Than a Trillion Stars
The recently retired infrared observatory was the only telescope to spot a far-off flash of light that holds clues about the physical characteristics of these…
Final Mosaic by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope “Stars” the California Nebula
The image composite is just one of hundreds that the infrared observatory produced during its 16 years in space. Five days before NASA’s Spitzer Space…
Astronomers Measure Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf for the First Time
Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make the first measurement of…
NASA Measures Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf 200 Trillion Miles Away
Not quite planets and not quite stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. Learning about their atmospheres could help us understand giant planets around other stars….
Parallax Microlensing Free-Floating Stars in the Milky Way’s Bulge
The path of a light beam is bent by the presence of mass, as explained by General Relativity. A massive body can therefore act like…
It’s Lights Out for One of NASA’s Great Observatories – Heartbreaking Goodbye
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Ends Mission of Astronomical Discovery For more than 16 years, the infrared observatory revealed new wonders in our solar system, our…
Major Meltdown for Hottest Planet: Even Molecules Are Torn to Shreds
In the scorching atmosphere of exoplanet KELT-9b, even molecules are torn to shreds. Massive gas giants called “hot Jupiters” — planets that orbit too close…